Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument Backpacking

[Aaron Zagrodnick]

I sit alone along a flat gravel ridgeline somewhere in the Sonoran Desert’s Ajo Mountains. There are no winter clouds, no moon, and a spellbinding cacophony of tinsel stars is visible above the din of chirping, cheeping crickets. Suddenly, the distinctive roar of fighter jet engines joins the caroling chorus, aircraft whose red blinking LEDs trace somersault motions in the sky like a berserk Rudolph piloting Santa’s sleigh. A string of yellow puffs, bright as Christmas lights, trail the planes before I hear the distant boom of missiles pummeling the earth somewhere north within Barry M. Goldwater Air Force Range. Solitude. Nature. America. I can’t help but smile...

In Issue 29, @Daniel Anderson Jr reports back after a trip to the scenic Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in Arizona - take a look in Issue 29:

24 Hours in the Sonoran Desert

Issue 29 Page 1